IBM refreshes Storwize V5000 array line-up

IBM has replaced its five Storwize V5000 arrays with four faster, bigger and cheaper models.

V5000E

The V5000 and V7000 products are classic dual-controller storage arrays which use IBMs Spectrum Virtualise software to provide a pool of SAN (block access) storage. They come in a 2U x 24 2.5-inch slot base chassis.

The old and new model ranges look like this;

As you can see the V5000E and V5100 replaces the original V5000 line. The table below shows the feature spec of old and new.

Bold text highlights changes and yellow columns indicate new products

The V5010E, with E indicating Extended, replaces the V5010 and V5020. The V5030E replaces the V5030 and all-flash V5030F.

V5100

A new V5100 line which pushes the V5000E range closer to the high-end V7000s. It looks like this:

FCMs are IBM’s proprietary FlashCore Modules, its own design SSDs. The V5100F is the all-flash mode.

These have considerably more cache memory than the V5000Es and can support NVMe drives and NVMe over Fibre Channel to provide low-latency and fast access to data. IBM said the V5100s are ready for storage-class memory and 32Gbit/s Fibre Channel.

The V5100s can have two nodes in a cluster while the V7000s can cluster up to four nodes together. If you can bear looking at another table here is one showing some of their features:

Updated Storwize V7000 table.

Update: Blocks & Files was told by Eric Herzog that; ” The Storwize V7000 Gen3 introduced in October ’18 was also updated, along with the new Storwize 5000/5100 family announced 2 April, with the same 30.72TB SSDs, the 14TB HDDs, the 25Gbit/s Ethernet and the 32Gbit/s FC.”

Storwize management

All the Storwize arrays are managed through IBM’s Storage Insights, a cloud-based management and support tool, which provides analytics and automation.

Bullet points from IBM’s Storwize update briefing deck:

V5010E has 4x more cache than the V5010, 2x its IOPS, and scales to 12PB maximum flash capacity.

V5010E is 30 per cent cheaper than the V5010 and can be upgraded to the V5030E.

V5030E has compression and deduplication. It scales to 23PB of all-flash storage in a single system; 32PB with 2-way clustering.

V5030E has a 30 per cent lower street price than the V5030 and 20 per cent more IOPS.

V5100s can have 2PB of flash in a 2U chassis, and scale out like the V5030F; 23PB in a single system or 32PB with 2-way clustering.

V5100s have 9x more cache than the V5030, and pump out 2.4x more IOPS than the V5030F (with data reduction), while costing 10 per cent more.

All-in-all, the refreshed V5000E and V5100s, and updated V7000s go faster than the previous models, store more data and enable users to get at it faster for less cost.